Babe felt her lips draw together. “Are we using it?”
“Well, we have a few gaps in the cruise line, and it wouldn’t be too hard to crash. What do you think? A fond hommage to past elegance?”
Babe had been trying her best to keep an open mind, to get a feel for what was happening in today’s fashion. But more and more she had a frustrating sense of inability to judge the direction that design had taken, or at least that Babethings had chosen to take. The company designers were making brilliant statements, but the fact that the statement had to be worn by a living woman was simply an obstacle to be ingeniously and expensively conquered.
“It’s rather … witty,” Babe said. And if Billi included it in the line, she would have to wonder if she understood anything about today’s fashions.
“Witty,” Billi said. “What an apt observation. What ever did we do without you for seven long years, ma petite? Yes, we’ll use it. A little blandness to spice the line.”
34
CARDOZO WAS OVERSEEING THE case of an Upper East Side slasher victim that Monteleone was handling, and it took him to Dr. Flora Vogelsang’s neighborhood, a bright half mile of antique shops and art galleries. The air was thick with the smell of money burning, the jostle of women who spent a thousand dollars on a wristwatch, men who paid five hundred for a wallet.
In the lobby of 1220 Madison a doorman sat with hunched shoulders on a stool by the buzzers. Cardozo approached.
“Help you?” the doorman challenged.
Cardozo opened his wallet, flashing the shield and a twenty-dollar bill. Bribes were not tax-deductible, and they couldn’t be recovered from petty cash. They were an inescapable expense of the Job.
“Does a child psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Flora Vogelsang live here?”
Cardozo moved through a corridor thronged with delivery boys, derelicts, off-duty cops, neighborhood office workers. It was the standard showing for the noon lineup, an easy way to make five bucks if you resembled the precinct’s suspect of the day.
He stepped into the viewing room. This was the see-through side of the one-way mirror. A white-faced young woman was sitting there shredding a Kleenex.
“Thanks for coming, Miss Yannovitch.” Cardozo put on his most sympathetic voice and face. “I know this isn’t easy for you.”
Tammy Yannovitch was the next-door-neighbor of a woman whose murder was being investigated. Yannovitch had reported seeing a male Hispanic entering the elevator just before she’d heard her neighbor’s dog barking; she’d gone into the unlocked apartment and found the body. A patrolman had caught a male Hispanic trying to break into an apartment three buildings away, roughly the same description, carrying an upholsterer’s knife.
Cardozo spoke into the mike. “Okay, bring ’em on.”
On the other side of the mirror seven Hispanics filed into the room and stood blinking into the light.
Tammy Yannovitch opened her purse and put on her glasses, and right away Cardozo knew her ID was going to be worthless.
“You wear those glasses often, Miss Yannovitch?”
“Only when I go to the movies.” She stared at each of the seven, squinting through her pink-tinted Coke-bottle lenses. “It’s hard to be sure—I only saw him that split second.”
“That’s okay. Take your time.”
She took her time, said she thought maybe it was number two, maybe it was number four. The men stepped forward and faced right and left and she still wasn’t sure.
Cardozo was looking at number six. The man was wearing a Miss Liberty T-shirt, and black hair curled from his enormous head. His features were thick, as though a sculptor had laid them on with a trowel. The lobe of his right ear was missing and with his heavy, rounded shoulders he was brutish in appearance.
“I’m sorry,” Miss Yannovitch said. “I can’t be sure. I’d hate to get an innocent man arrested.”
Cardozo laid a consoling hand on her shoulder. “That’s okay, Miss Yannovitch. Thanks for your trouble.” He turned to Sam Richards. “Take number six up to the squad room.”
Cardozo went to the computer room and asked the sergeant to call up the sheet on Waldo Flores.
Two attempted rape. One conviction.
Multiple possession and use of stolen credit cards.
Multiple possession of stolen goods.
Multiple possession of controlled substances. One conviction.
Multiple possession of controlled substances with intent to sell.
Multiple living off immoral earnings of female.
It was an interesting sheet for a man of Waldo Flores’s range. There was not a single breaking and entering. So, obviously, Waldo was an expert B and E man.
Cardozo went to the evidence room and checked out two vials of crack.
Flores was waiting upstairs in the squad room.
“Hey, Waldo.” Cardozo slapped a hand on his back. “Been a while. You’re looking good. Come on in here. Let’s talk.”
Waldo’s eyes were serious, questioning. “Lieutenant, I just came by to earn five bucks. Anyone fingered me, they’re crazy.”
“I forget how you like your coffee. Milk and sugar? Make yourself comfortable, amigo.”
Waldo sat in a chair. “This place is a Turkish bath. How do you stand it?”
“A cheerful attitude is the secret, Waldo. God gives me the courage to change the things I can and the serenity to accept the things I can’t. And why don’t you give me your jacket if you’re too hot. Nice denim. Is it a Calvin?”
“It comes from the Army Navy.”
“You’ve been boosting at the Army Navy again?”
“I charged it.”
“Whose charge card?”
“I want to see a lawyer. Get me a nice lady lawyer with a big soft ass.”
“Let’s put your pretty jacket right here on the back of the chair. How’s your coffee?”
“You drink this shit or you save it to brutalize minorities?”
Cardozo had to smile. There was something likable about the guy, a kind of engaging street sass.
“That’s top-of-the-line precinct coffee. I’m doing my best for you. I’m even going to help you out of the jam you’re in.”
Waldo frowned. “Who says I’m in a jam?”
“Your rap sheet says you’re an expert B and E man.”
“That sheet’s a horse’s ass. I been booked for fencing goods I didn’t know was stolen; but breaking and entering, no way.”
“I know, amigo. You got a way of finding twenty-two-inch TV’s on the street that’s uncanny. I have a serious offer to make you. How’d you like to do a job for me?”
Waldo flashed two surly dark eyes. “You think I’m going to go for some crazy entrapment? Man, you been smoking.”
“Do this for me, and we drop the crack charge.”
“What crack charge?”
“You’re holding, Waldo.”
“Bullshit.”
Cardozo heaved himself up from the chair and went to the door. “Sam, would you come in here a minute?”
Sam Richards sauntered into the cubicle.
“Does Mr. Flores look like he’s holding two vials of crack in the right pocket of that jacket?”
“One way to find out.” Richards reached into the denim jacket and pulled out two vials.
“You planted those,” Waldo screamed.
“Take them and label them, would you, Sam?”
Cardozo brought two more cups of coffee, and this time he shut the door.
“Here’s the deal, Waldo. There’s a little old lady that has her home and office in a building on Madison and Eighty-seventh.”
Cardozo explained exactly what he wanted from Flora Vogelsang’s files. “Thursday would be a good night to hit her.”
Waldo looked into space. He’d served time on two felonies. Nothing mattered to him now except staying out of jail.
“Any dogs? Any cats?” His voice was low and wispy, like his balls had been cut. “I don’t go in where there are any pets.”
“No dogs, no cats. This lady’s a loner.”
The kid at the pizza counter had dyed his hair magenta and he had a safety pin in his ear and he was spending too long arguing on the payphone. When he finally slammed the receiver down and came over to Waldo it was like he was doing someone a favor.